PHP Web Development: A Step by Step Guide (2021)

What is PHP Web Development?

In the field of information technology, there are several languages to choose from. PHP, on the other hand, continues to be a popular web development language. 

The best thing is that it is open-source and aids in the creation of highly reliable web applications. It was developed for the creation of powerful web applications due to its open-source availability. 

There are a variety of reasons why PHP has become one of the most common market languages. A skilled PHP web development company has put in a considerable amount of time to master the language. 

To follow in their footsteps, you’ll need to be inspired and, hopefully, able to learn PHP easily and efficiently.

A Step By Step Process To Learn PHP Web Development

1) Learn PHP first

Though PHP is an excellent first programming language, it should not be the first foray into web creation. 

If you haven’t already done so, you can spend some time studying HTML before diving into PHP. HTML is a markup language that is used to create web pages rather than a programming language. 

This ensures that the code you write reflects the fundamental components of a web page, such as photographs and text. 

Since you can’t program some features in a markup code, it’s pretty easy to understand.

But, to render websites more dynamic, you’ll need to use a language like PHP in addition to HTML. PHP is commonly used to create web pages.

2) Keep in mind your designs

You should have a goal in mind on what you want to do with PHP now that you know why you want to learn it. 

Learning PHP can be a long process, but having an end target in mind will help you stay focused. By making you create a project while studying the basics of PHP creation, online courses like BitDegree’s Learn PHP Online course keep the learning experience engaging and interactive. 

This is a perfect way to keep the learning experience exciting and relatable, but getting a project concept in mind is much better. 

If you have your project in mind, you will be more motivated to remember what you read so that you can add it to it. 

You’ll need to exercise your freshly acquired PHP skills on a regular basis, and it’s normally best to inspire yourself to focus on your dream. As your skills improve, you can also create various iterations of your idea. 

For instance, you might start with a simple contact app that only allows you to add and remove contacts.

3) Be confident you want to learn PHP

If you’re new to programming and have found this post, you do not have a clear preference for many programming languages to learn. 

Though this isn’t always a challenge, it can be. While this isn’t actually a concern, it could cause a problem later on if you discover that a new programming language is best suited to your goals.

PHP is a server-side programming language widely used in web development; if you decide after a few months that what you really want to do is work at Rockstar Games and help create the next Grand Theft Auto game, you’ll need to learn PHP.

4) Active learning is preferable to passive learning

Learning consciously rather than passively is one of the most important ways to improve learning performance. 

Passively learning entails actually seeing, reading, or listening to information and absorbing it. Active learning entails applying what you’ve learned to a challenge or mission. 

Active learning techniques seem to be preferred over passive learning strategies by educational practitioners. The only issue is that developing an active learning experience is more complex than creating a passive learning experience. 

The ‘Read PHP Online’ course from BitDegree is an excellent example of successful learning. To go on to the next lesson in the course, you must solve the problem in the code editor using what you have just learned.

API (Application Programming Interface)

You’ll be working with APIs a lot in web creation, which is essentially dealing with third-party info. 

It enables developers to use some of the features without having to share the code. There is a fantastic Github list of APIs that you can use for a variety of purposes, and that also provides project ideas. 

You can learn more about Public APIs by clicking on the page. We suggest that you learn about Rest APIs, HTTP request methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE), Rest API creation, and CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete). Different status codes, data formats used in the request (JSON, HTML, or XML), and so on. 

Authentication

There’s a good possibility you’ll have to work with user verification in order to monitor visitors on a particular website.

Allowing users to log in, log out, and build services from their personal accounts, as well as tracking which user-generated which resource, and banning those sites for non-logged-in users. 

The protection of a user’s account is highly reliant on authentication. As a result, it’s critical to understand how to work with this kind of feature in your PHP web development company.

Authentication for users can be done in a variety of ways, depending on the programming language or application you’re using. 

If you’re using React on the frontend and Node with Express on the backend, you may be able to use JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for authentication; if you’re using PHP, you’ll have to deal with sessions and cookies; you might even use third-party login services including Google or Twitter. 

There are a variety of ways to deal with authentication, so it’s a crucial idea to understand and use in web creation.

MVC (Model View Controller) 

MVC is a design pattern that saves developers a lot of time by dividing the program into three parts. 

Working with the MVC pattern speeds up and simplifies production. Many higher-level frameworks, such as Laravel, Django (built on MVT, which is similar to MVC), and Angular, are based on MVC trends. 

The Model in MVC is in charge of database interaction, the View is in charge of what the user sees on the computer, and the Controller is the interface between the model and the View. 

Learning MVC will make it easier for you to grasp constructs for any programming language.

Searching and solving problems

If you want to work as a web developer, you should be able to solve problems and look for information naturally. 

Problem-solving and searching skills can be developed through various tasks, data models and algorithms, challenges, puzzles, and other activities, but you must continue to practice whatever you want. 

If you’re a novice or an expert in web creation, you’ll spend a lot of time looking for facts, syntax, or solutions to problems while you design the application. 

You will almost certainly run into any odd errors that you are totally unaware of, and you will need to seek assistance from Google or forums like Stackoverflow to resolve the problem.

Programming Languages

Since computers do not understand human languages, you must communicate with your machine using programming languages. 

Programming languages are needed to learn in web creation, as are all logics that can be applied using a variety of programming languages. 

Web developers use a number of languages, including PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, and, most recently, Javascript, to manage the backend portion of the website. 

To design your web application as a web developer, you must know at least one programming language.

Writing Tests

Many developers think it’s pointless and time-consuming. You can skip writing tests if you are developing a small application, but if you are developing a big application, we suggest that you write tests such as unit tests and other forms of tests because they tend to make the whole project more stable and debugging simpler. 

You will first believe you are wasting your time, but you will soon know that you are actually saving time, so make it a routine to write tests when developing your application.

DevOps and Deployment 

Last but not least, as a software developer, you should be able to maintain, scale, migrate, and deploy your code on various platforms such as cloud, AWS, Heroku, Netlify, and others. 

There are a lot of choices, so take some time to read about these systems, how they function, and how to deploy or manage the code on them.